


i needed you 679 times

by anexorcist



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics), Red Robin (Comics), Teen Titans (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, One-Sided Attraction, One-Sided Relationship, Vague Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-25
Updated: 2016-08-25
Packaged: 2018-08-10 23:42:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7866022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anexorcist/pseuds/anexorcist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>- you’re still in love with me but your friends don’t know / if you wanted me you would just say so / and if i were you i would never let me go -</p><p>“i hate u, i love u” by gnash ft. olivia o'brien</p>
            </blockquote>





	i needed you 679 times

Tim meets Conner on the rooftop. He didn’t plan this– he’d planned to meet Jason, but Conner shows up, floats down to him like in his dreams, all his dreams, most of his dreams, but when Conner pulls him against his chest, Tim can feel it– the softness of his well-worn shirt, the solidness of his chest underneath, the warmth and the pulse of him, alive and beating well and strong.

Tim can feel it, he can feel it all, and Jason doesn’t show up.

***

Tim washes the dishes, the running water and clinking of dishes a comfort in his warm, his silent, his shared apartment. The walls aren’t thin – it’s a decently priced place with a view and lots of fire escapes – but on a quiet afternoon like this, Tim can still hear the neighbors upstairs watching _Grease_.

The songs and the lilting voices float through the drywall, and Tim thinks about John Travolta in his T-bird jacket and– okay, maybe Tim has a history of falling for bad boys with nice jackets. Jason has one, doesn’t matter if he’s Jason Peter or the Red Hood, wears it like a second skin. Kon used to have one, too, but it’s long gone. Tim wonders idly if it’s been given to charity, if it’s at the back of his closet with most of their shared memories, or if his grandma still has it– a precious memento no matter how much she hated the smell of smoke on him, back then.

The lock clicks as a key turns it open and Jason steps in, his boots quietly thudding on the hard wood before he toes them off.

Tim’s learned all the small sounds, all the precious noises of Jason’s seemingly ordinary, seemingly unimportant actions. But, Tim understands the greatness, the profoundness in even a minute shift, even a small draw of breath. He notices all of them, and he waits for the shuffle of Jason shrugging his jacket off, the crinkle of leather as he throws it on the back of the couch.

Later, Tim will fold it neatly or he’ll hang it up proper on the coat rack. But the sounds don’t come.

The soft thud of Jason’s boots meets him between the kitchen and the living room, but he doesn’t cross the threshold. Tim’s heart is in his throat when he hearts the keys jingling in Jason’s hand, when he realizes he didn’t hear the one-time clink as Jason dropped them, should have dropped them into the dish by the door.

“So what does this mean for us?” Jason asks.

Someone will ask Tim later, what he remembers about this moment. It won’t be Jason, it won’t be Conner, but it will be someone and they will ask and Tim will say–

It was the slant of sunlight, setting behind him, over unfinished dishes, and the way it should have illuminated Jason, but instead it cast shadows across the sharp planes of his face. It broke across his image and fell and filled all the wrinkles in his jacket, his soft well-worn red shirt, his jeans, until it spilled across the floor, overflowing the room the way the faucet kept running and filled an empty glass in the sink until it spilled over and down the drain.

That’s what Tim will remember– the light.

Tim opens his mouth to answer, but nothing comes out.

In the afternoon, in their warm, their quiet apartment, Tim has goosebumps on his arm as music from the neighbors’ movie filters through the walls.

_“You’re the one that I want, ooh ooh ooohh.”_


End file.
